Nothing will get done with this congress. Absolutely nothing. No matter how common-sense it is. That means NCLB will be exactly the same for the 2011-2012 year, which is sad. 82% of schools could fail with the current law.

Former Dem Senator to Join Fox News
Fox News snared a Democrat: Former Indiana senator Evan Bayh, who served from 1999 to 2011 and was once considered a prime pick to be Obama’s vice president, is expected to announce Monday that he is joining the network as a contributor and political analyst. During his time in Senate, Bayh was one of the most moderate Democrats in the caucus. He was also the governor of Indiana from 1989 until 1997.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/14/fox-news-evan-bayh_n_835521.html
Posted at 3:29 PM, Mar 14, 2011

Fox already looking towards 2016 it seems. Bayh never missed a television opportunity to bash the President, so can’t say I’m surprised. And it gives Fox the counter to “At least NBC has on former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough”.

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA AND PRIME MINISTER RASMUSSEN OF DENMARK AFTER BILATERAL MEETING

Oval Office

2:34 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, thank you very much, everybody. Michelle and I both have very fond memories of the extraordinary hospitality that was shown to us when we traveled to Denmark in the first two years of my presidency.

It is wonderful to be able to return the favor to my good friend Prime Minister Rasmussen. There are many Rasmussens in Denmark, but Lars Lokke and I have had a chance to work in international forums together on a wide range of issues, and I’ve got extraordinary respect for his leadership.

We discussed a wide range of issues here today. Of special importance has been our appreciation of the sacrifices that have been made by Danish troops in Afghanistan, and the extraordinary leadership that Denmark has shown as part of ISAF.

OOOPS! I posted the same stuff. Can’t be as bad as Congrressman Conyers(D) going to the national press club today, and slamming the POTUS.
He said, he can thank his lucky stars that the republican field is so weak. Then he said, he knew what he was getting into, when he said he would close gitmo, and did not.

(What a shit! He said it is his fault for NOT closing gitmo? Really)?

Then he said, he just wants to help him be a better President, but he still supports him/.

Well, I still support Conyers, I just want him to stop being unethical and to tell his WIFE to stop breaking the law!

DNC says Tim Kaine is ‘increasingly likely’ to run for the Senate
By Michael O’Brien – 03/14/11 01:42 PM ET

DNC Chairman Tim Kaine is “increasingly likely” to run for Senate in Virginia but hasn’t made a final decision, a top spokesman said Monday.

Brad Woodhouse, the communications director for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), said that Kaine informed his law school class that he’s leaning toward jumping in the Virginia Senate race.

But, Woodhouse stressed, Kaine has made no final decisions and is continuing a “final round of consultations” with President Obama and Democratic Party officials.

“In response to a student’s question, Governor Kaine told his law school class today what is already widely known which is that he is increasingly likely to run,” Woodhouse said in a statement.

“However, no final decision will be made or announced until the governor has had a final round of consultations with folks about how he can best serve the President, the people and the causes he cares about; he is assured that the Democratic Party will be in good hands should he choose to make the race and leave the DNC; he has the support that would be necessary to mount a successful campaign and he completes commitments for travel and fundraising he has made to the Party and the president through at least the end of the month,” Woodhouse added.

Op-ed by Vice President Biden in the International Herald Tribune: The Next Steps in the U.S.-Russia Reset

The Next Steps In the U.S.-Russia Reset

International Herald Tribune

March 14, 2011

By Joseph R. Biden Jr.

When we came into office two years ago, our relationship with Russia had reached a low point. The war between Russia and Georgia played a role in that decline, but even before that conflict erupted in August 2008, a dangerous drift was under way.

While we no longer considered each other enemies, you couldn’t always tell that from the rhetoric flying back and forth. Ironically, this came at a time when American and Russian security interests, as well as economic interests, were more closely aligned than ever.

That’s why President Obama made it a priority to reset our relationship with Russia — and asked me to launch it just three weeks into the new administration at the Munich Security Conference. I said then that “the United States and Russia can disagree and still work together where our interests coincide. And they coincide in many places.”

I am so proud that my 26 year old “union thug” teacher/daughter and her “union thug” teacher friends are in Annapolis right now protesting outside of the MD state house for union rights! MD is true blue, but you can’t take anything for granted these days.

So to help him be a better president, they humiliate him on TV? Is this one of those “this hurts me more than it hurts you” nonsense? Notice the things he listed are things only the PL are very passionate about? What average American wakes up worrying about Gitmo?

LaHood: O’Hare deal is a ‘big deal’ not just for Chicago
By Keith Laing – 03/14/11 03:32 PM ET

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood hailed an agreement between two major carrier airlines and Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport as a big deal, not just for the city of Chicago, but for the entire country.

“This is a big deal,” LaHood wrote Monday afternoon on the Department of Transportation’s Fast Lane blog. “It’s a big deal for the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois, of course. But O’Hare plays a central role in America’s aviation network, and that makes this a big deal for all of us.”

“Adding capacity to America’s second busiest airport will improve service for air travelers across the country,” LaHood continued. “Because 64 million passengers use O’Hare each year — connecting to 130 domestic airports — anything we can do to move airplanes in and out more safely and efficiently has national economic significance.”

LaHood, a former congressman from Illinois, was credited with helping broker a deal between O’Hare and United and American airlines on a modernization plan that includes two new runways, the expansion of an existing runway and construction of a new terminal.

At one time the world’s busiest airport, O’Hare is currently number two in terms of air traffic. United and American provide more than 80 percent of the flights to and from the airport.

Kaine would be the best chance the Dems have at holding the seat. It will be an absolute barnburner of a race – one that will have huge national focus.

It will be important to have a candidate who won’t run away from Obama, but run with him – something I didn’t have faith Webb would do. The GOP’s Presidential choice will realy effect this race as well – Romney would keep it close, but Huckabee wouldn’t do well in Va with the pro-business moderates/indies.

Also worth noting that the choice of the DNC Convention in North Carolina will have some bleed over effect in Va, especially southern Va. Initially I was a supporter of St. Louis getting it, but I think the Dems made the right decision here. McCaskill might have to run more a low key campaign, away from the President in some instances that tries to put the focus on Missouri and not on national politics. OTOH NC is purple but trending blue and could be a good firewall hold for the Dems while also influencing S.Virginia which is usually more friendly to the GOP.

I wonder if Tom Perriello runs in a rematch for his seat back if Kaine does go after the open Senate seat.

I don’t know that Bayh was ever considered a “prime pick.” I personally believe PBO put his bland, jealous behind on the list for consideration to humor him and appease Hillary voters. He sure didn’t need his behind to win Indiana.

Bayh has been bitter ever since he and Obama made their initial presidential primary campaign appearances in N.H. on the same day. Obama had a huge overflow crowd and Bayh had about about 3 people at his event, including his campaign chairman. It was over and out for Bayh’s presidential (pipe)dream shortly thereafter.

I called Conyers’ office (202) 225-5126 and the CBC (202) 226-9776 and gave them a piece of my mind.

These fossils are just jealous. Right, Conyers, you’ve been doing this for a hundred years and accomplished nothing for the folks you represent. It took this young, bright, mind to come in and save the auto industry in your broke state.

Instead of trying to derail PBO, why don’t you try to work on your unethical wife. Better yet, why don’t you take your 80-year-old jealous behind and retire.

It really doesn’t matter what these old fools think. They didn’t support PBO before and he won anyway. And he will run away with 2012 too because we’re going to work like hell to make sure of it.

Recent economic data show more encouraging signs for the economic recovery. However, we aren’t out of the woods yet. Vigilance is required to ensure the correct policy decisions are made to continue the recovery in the short and long-term.

Last week’s employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the economy added 222,000 private sector jobs last month — the 12th straight month of employment gains in the private sector.

The employment gains were broad-based. Nearly every sector of the economy gained jobs in February. The manufacturing sector, a barometer of our nation’s global competitiveness, added 33,000 jobs last month and nearly 200,000 since the end of 2009. Health care, a source of employment gains even throughout the recent recession, gained another 34,000 jobs.

One tiny caution: I don’t think his age has anything to do with it; Tavis Smiley is half his age and has twice his bitterness towards POTUS. I think that Conyers buys into the “tear em down to build them up” philosophy, which couldn’t be more short-sighted. What Dems need right now is more votes in Congress. How does slamming Dems achieve that? “We suck, vote for more of us.” Not a great communications strategy, lol.

Christie, 48, also has one major weakness, according to state and national polls: He has trouble with women.

The former U.S. prosecutor’s support is far higher among men than women, who compose more than half the population and turned out in far greater numbers for recent elections. The divide might prove a stumbling block should Christie seek to advance on a national stage, by aggravating a gender gap that Republicans have fought for the past three decades.

*snip*

Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners and a Democratic pollster who has done surveys in New Jersey for groups fighting with Christie, disagrees.

“He has a huge gender gap,” Lake said in an interview. “There’s a fundamental sense among women that his policies and his budget politics just represent the wrong priorities. So there’s partisanship that really opened him up, and then there’s his personal style that really strikes men and women differently.”

A Quinnipiac University poll released March 7, which found that Christie was essentially tied with President Barack Obama as the “hottest” sitting U.S. politician, also showed his lopsided gender support. The poll asked voters to rate their sentiments 0 to 100 degrees on a “feeling thermometer.” While 35 percent of women rated Obama between 81 degrees and 100 degrees, the warmest or most favorable, only 7 percent felt that way about the governor.
46 Percent

Christie’s approval rating in his home state also is lower among women. In a Feb. 9 Quinnipiac poll of New Jersey voters, 52 percent approved of Christie, including 58 percent of men and 46 percent of women.

Other polls have registered similar gender gaps. A November 2009 exit poll by CBS News found that Christie led incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine among men by a 13 percentage-point margin and among women lagged behind by 5 percentage points. A late February poll by Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics found that 50 percent of women viewed Christie unfavorably, compared with 37 percent for men.

*snip*

The poll data suggest that there is more than just the partisan rift that typically leaves women supporting Democrats, Redlawsk said.

Republican women were also less favorably disposed to the governor than men of his party, according to a sample from his results he said was too small to be scientific but was nonetheless revealing.

*snip*

In 2007-2008, 76 percent of public-school teachers were female, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. Women have cast 4 million to 7 million more votes than men in recent elections, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers.

I really like Granholm for a bigger more public role, however she caused a ton of unneeded drama in the 2008 primary by moving up the Michigan primary. Was DWS involved in the Florida muck-up as well? I understand why she tried to move up the Mi primary and she was representing Michigan at the time, but she went against DNC wishes.

Wasserman-Shultz needs to be in the House ad I assume she’d have to quit (even if her seat is safe Dem), Granholm is out of elected office and could appeal to Michigan/Mid-West voters and remind them about the Obama Admin saving the Auto industry. Also she could stop Snyder from claiming results that she started as Michigan Gov.

Posted at 01:48 PM ET, 03/14/2011
Nearly half of signatures collected for recall of Wisconsin GOP state senators, Dems say
By Greg Sargent
In another sign that the Wisconsin GOP’s quick passage of the bill to roll back bargaining rights is only causing the fight to escalate, Dems have now collected over 45 percent of the signatures necessary to hold recall elections for eight GOP state senators, the Wisconsin Democratic Party tells me.

Dems have now collected over 56,000 signatures supporting the recall drives, according to party spokesman Graeme Zielinski, after another surge in organizing activity over the weekend. That’s up from rougly 14,000 after last weekend. This means Dems are well ahead of schedule: In each targeted district, Dems need to amass the required signatures — 25 percent of the number who voted in the last gubernatorial election — by a deadline of 60 days after first filing for recalls, which happened nearly two weeks ago.

In other words, Dems are reporting they are nearly halfway to the finish line, with roughly three-fourths of the alloted time remaining.

Though the national media has largely treated the Wisconsin story as resolved, now that Republicans used a procedural maneuver to pass Scott Walker’s measure, the new signature numbers suggest the GOP’s maneuver may only be giving more momentum to the recall drives. The recall fight has drawn the attention of national Dems, who are keeping attention on the battle in hopes that it will have ramifications in the 2012 Congressional and presidential elections, by galvanizing the Dem base, persuading independents that the GOP has overreached, and reawakening the affection of blue collar whites for unions.

Some will insist that these numbers are unreliable, because they are coming from Dems. But if they did cook the numbers, such exaggerations would quickly become apparent if they fell well short of their goals by the deadline. (Republicans are refusing to reveal the amount of signatures they’ve collected to recall Dems.) What’s more, these signatures numbers claimed by Dems mirror other indicators of enthusiasm: Dems and labor continue to raise money for the recall drives at a dizzying clip, and a huge rally amassed in Madison over the weekend.

According to Wisconsin Dem spokesman Zielinski, Dems are ahead of pace in signature gathering in every single one of the eight districts being targteted, and in three of the districts, Dems have well over 50 percent of the number required.

Some caveats: The last half of signatures is far harder to collect than the first half. Dems will want to collect well over 100 percent of the number required as a cushion against signatures getting tossed out. We don’t yet know which of the districts Dems are ahead in and whether they correspond with the districts where a recall election has a plausible chance of dislodging the GOP officeholder. It could also become harder to sustain momentum in the weeks ahead. But for now, Dems and labor are very pleased indeed with the progress they continue to make.

Az GOP primary could be realy tough. If Franks runs against Flake things will get heated. Both will have to run to the far right in that Flake is a libertarian and Franks is a strong party first Conservative on all issues. Franks will attack Flake on social issues as Flake voted to end DADT and is against SB1070, and if Franks is ultimately successful and wins, those attacks might alienate indies and moderates(if there are any left in Az).

Christie is seen as a bully – and while some men might like that tough guy act, women won’t. That video of Christie screaming in the fact of the citizen asking the question of Whitman in California will not be a good look for him in a national campaign.

I did not know that the Republicans were mounting a counter-recall to ditch the Dems. Don’t know why I’m surprised by that. This is truly a show of organizing strength. I’ll take the Unions any day of the week over the Republicans. Who ever might want to recall the Democrats just simply can’t be as angry as those who seek to recall the Republicans. Very interesting.

Eventually the recall effort can get registered Dem addresses and call them up individually or go door to door to Dem houses. I’ve also read where they’re creating a database to be able to quickly contact these same folks when they can first start collecting for a Walker recall.

I’ll never understand why so many State senators, elected before they ever heard of Walker, were willing to to all in with Walker. National GOP must have used extreme pressure – but either way these guys political careers are over, might as well did it doing the right thing.

I can’t remember where I read it, but Walker thinks he’ll be a prime VP candidate because of this, trying to vault himself like Sarah Palin did after only two years in the Governors Mansion.

Don’t worry, Lawrence Odonell will have on all the Wisconsin republican state senators to start off his show. He will personally see to it, that the republicans win! This guy is a joke, liked him at ten o’clock, but at eight o’clock, he is a pawn of the PL!

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took a break from budget negotiations this week to get back to one of the Senate GOP’s most popular pastimes: blocking presidential nominees. McConnell, along with Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), pledged in a letter on Monday to hold up any White House nominee to replace departing Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as well as nominees for any other trade-related posts until trade agreements with Colombia and Panama clear the Senate.

“My fear is in trying to appease their union allies the administration is willing to let these two agreements wither on the vine,” Hatch said at a press conference Monday announcing the move. “We are here today to make clear that we will not allow that to happen.”

President Obama said that the agreements were a priority in his State of the Union this year, but U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said last month that the Latin American countries must address their own outstanding labor issues, including accusations of violence against labor leaders in Colombia, before a final deal is reached.

the bigger challenge is if Rs cut most or all Fed funding for education. That’s the worry. And President O said he would not allow that.

It’s pretty much agreed that NCLB is a failed program, even tho’ it did rightfully focus on kids in certain groups being systematically ignored.

It’s a truism in organizational change literature. You get more of what you count. If you’re counting failure, focus is down, people forget about where they are heading, and failures multiply. If you count successes, you get more success, and not surprisingly, less failure at the same time.

So, the Republicans are siding with the foreign governments, and screwing the people of those countries, as well as the people of this country. Why doesn’t it surprise me that the Republicans could care less about getting a fair trade deal for the American people.

I got to meet President Obama a few days ago when he was in town to speak in Dorchester. I don’t get star struck that easily, but man … it was pretty cool!

I admire what he’s been able to do so much. I also had a chance to tell him about my charity program – FitClub34. Michelle Obama’s program Let’s Move has the same goals as my program – to increase nutrition for kids … makin’ sure our kids are eating right, exercising and being healthy.

He loved some of the things we’ve been doin’, which made me feel real good. I’m hoping we will get to work together soon.

Because, they are certain the MSM will NOT inform you! That is why, they are trying to get all this shit out of the way, before the campaign begins, and is why NO republicanas have officially anounced yet!
They do NOT wnat to be dragged into this cat fight!

But his term was coming to an end and had no election to run in. It was less than ideal as well, but with Obama not having a spot for Kaine in his cabinet, and Kaine being a VP finalist he needed a key post somewhere. Wasserman-Shultz would have to run her re-election campaign the same time she’s supposed to be focused/strategizing on the national Dems and raising national monies.

Lawrence raised a big stink about the President’s SOTU address because he didn’t focus the speech on guns (LO’s pet topic du jour). So now that the President has written a brilliant op-ed in the Arizona paper about that very topic, thereby beginning to open the badly needed discussion and setting the tone, will Lawrence acknowledge this to the President’s credit, or will he ignore his supposedly favorite issue and instead focus on the next topic of outrage??

I actually prefer Wasserman-Schultz making the points for the Democratic Party and the President in the media. She’s feistier and doesn’t let them talk over her. Gov. Granholm is a much quieter debater who is more likely to make her point and concede the floor. In a more polite time in America that was sufficient but with the crazies on television now, you have to be more assertive in my view.

Tavis is bitter because candidate Obama didn’t come to his “black conference”. Tavis got slammed on Tom Joyner’s show and finally had to leave. Tavis is a hater – no more, no less. He knows he’s irrelevant and only Maher will have him on his show. But IMO, Maher is just as irrelevant.

This is what I don’t understand about some of these Democrats. They spend more time attacking the President than they do attacking Republicans. After turning off voters, and helping Republicans to win, they still expect President Obama to do everything.

Good points, fhcec. I also fear that our current trends in education are encouraging conformity and rote thinking rather than creativity and independent critical judgments. There have been many studies done that stress the value of art and music for a developing child’s thought processes (even Mike Huckabee knows this), and yet those are the first to go in these cuts. And extensive testing speaks to groupthink. And, of course, it has been proven that the fewer children to a teacher, the better they perform and yet our class sizes are getting larger.

I don’t remember this being the case with other Democratic Presidents, though I admit I probably was not paying as much attention. How did the majority of Democrats respond to the impeachment scam? I know Lieberman asked for Clinton’s resignation (and the fact that Al Gore chose him as the Vice Presidential candidate does give me some pause about Al Gore), but I don’t remember the Democrats repeatedly slamming him. They all seemed to support him as he pushed the entire party to the right.

That may be true, gn, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth regarding her because of her rabid support for Hillary Clinton during the primaries. Of course, it was not wrong of her to support the candidate of her choice, but she talked and acted in such a way that I usually turned her off when I saw her on television.